Down Beat (p.82) - 3 stars out of 5 -- "[A] minor gold mine of integrity and intrigue. There's a complete absence of posturing, just a man communing with the keys and almost involuntarily refracting one of the most versatile careers in jazz."JazzTimes (p.88) - "[With] vast quantities of fascinating individual ideas, some the partial skeletons of known or unknown songs. More fascinating is how these myriad ideas are impulsively juxtaposed."113.797

JazzTimes (8/97, p.116) - "...Bley anchors the mood of the program in penetrating, semi-sweet balladry...He then deftly shades this romantic base coat with elastic, sometimes torrid improvisations, using a vaguely Tristano-ish counterpoint....HANDS ON is a cut above..."91.0376

JazzTimes (12/93, p.71) - "...NOT TO BE A STAR may be the best introduction to Maslak, whose fervid, sardonic improvisations are framed by the relative composure of Paul Bley's piano....the rapport between the partners is startling..."0.7031025

JazzTimes (3/97, p.98) - "Paul Bley has made a career--and a lot of good music--out of bedevilling our expectations. Here is yet another example....Bley is a fountain of ideas, sometimes suggesting divergent harmonic and melodic directions, sometimes reveling in the sound of a lone tone cluster ringing through the pulse..."0.6026593

The Wire (8/99, p.64) - "...when you get to the piano solo at track ten, 'Portal', all the fine work up to that point seems like a prelude to five minutes 25 seconds of [Paul] Bley genius."Down Beat (2/00, pp.76-7) - 3.5 out of 5 - "...marked by frequent unison passages of sax and guitar and a constantly shifting underlay of percussion....filled with free improvisation..."0.5022161

Down Beat (4/01, p.60) - 3.5 stars out of 5 - "...Something of a catalog raisonne for Preston...showing what he can do twisting a standard around and delving a bit into his own compositional bag as well..."JazzTimes (5/01, p.177) - "...Revisits choice moments of weirdness and glory....Preston taps an ennui that Zappa obscured with flip artiness....The trio possess a cohesion borne of fluidity that is reminiscent of Paul Bley's '60 trios..."0.5022161